Kamen Rider Utsura: Sidequests
by starofjustice
Summary: Collection of side content and vignettes from the deranged world of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid and its fan sequel, Kamen Rider Utsura. Sometime serious, sometimes silly. Come on in and see!
1. Chapter 1

Without warning the street seemed to have gone silent. Kamen Rider Rune looked back and forth, over the ground but also up the walls for any sign of their enemy.

"Do you see him?" Kamen Rider Sling demanded, the wind conveniently picking up to dramatically blow his suit's poncho around.

"Wouldn't I have told you if I did?" Rune replied, with growing annoyance.

"Don't worry, kids!" cackled a voice above them. "If you're having that much trouble, I'll just come to you!"

The two looked straight up just as a dark shape with what looked like countless spindly arms came down on top of them like a meteor.

"The unstoppable Kumanic strikes again!" the purple spider-man laughed as he jumped off the two Kamen Riders he'd just knocked flat. His clusters of red compound eyes seemed to shine and the four extra legs sticking out sides shook with an amusement all their own.

His cackling stopped suddenly as an energy bullet glanced off one of his antennae. "HEY!" Kumanic yelled. "Cut that out!"

Sling didn't. His Pamaka fired in a downward burst that hit the spider monster on his forehead, across his crystalline eyes and down onto his chest. Rune pointed his staff and a storm of icy spikes shot across the street next that battered against Kumanic's shell-like skin. He rocked forward and back on his feet from the machine-gun impacts until he finally went flying a few feet and hit a dumpster.

Both Riders closed in to press their attack but Kumanic suddenly jumped back up, ready to fight. He spewed a sticky white web from his mouth that covered Rune, pinning his arms and forcing the tip of his staff against his chin. No way he could attack like that without blowing his own head off.

Sling fired his gun but Kumanic jumped out of the way and stuck to the wall of a building, vaulted off it on his thickest legs, spewing another web over the cowboy Rider too. Both were stuck to the ground, standing upright but unable to aim their weapons to fight back.

"Kumanic the unstoppable!" the monster cheered himself. "No matter what the Riders throw at him, he always comes out on top!" Eight flaps on his sides opened and a fist-sized spider jumped out from each, all over the trapped Kamen Riders.

Their tiny mandibles and razor-sharp raked against the Riders' armor. Sparks shot out and both yelled in pain.

Rune was the fragile one among their group; he was knocked down, the web torn to bits around him but his Gashat ejected from his staff. His armor faded from the punishment he'd just taken.

Sling clenched his teeth inside of his mask and managed to get his gun up and aim a shot at Kumanic. The giant spider pounced on Sling, slashing the Rider with the pointed tips of his own numerous legs. More sparks flew and Sling hit the ground next to Doku, reverted to Yoshoku.

"Kumanic the merciless!" the monster cheered for himself again, pumping his fists up toward the sky. "The toughest Kamen Riders crumble in front of me!"

Yoshoku wasn't listening to Kumanic's self-promotion, though. He reached out, his arm shaking, for where his Chase Billion cartridge had landed when he was pummeled back to normal.

But then he noticed someone else on their battlefield. Standing just behind his Gashat was a man wearing a faded martial arts gi, with a belt as black as his hair, not to mention as black as the look on his craggy face.

And immediately Yoshoku knew his name.

"….Segata Sanshiro!"

"Oh my god it is," Doku said, breathless at the sight.

Right away Kumanic's little victory celebration stopped. "Impossible," he said, though as if really trying convince himself. "He's not real."

The pain from being flipped over Segata Sanshiro's shoulder hard enough to leave an imprint with all his legs said otherwise.

Kumanic immediately flexed his legs on one side and flipped himself on to his stomach. The spider crawled back along the ground to where his attacker was waiting, then jumped at Segata Sanshiro, his limbs spread wide to catch the martial artist, a poison barb extended from his mouth aimed at the fleshy human throat.

But Segata Sanshiro's powerful hand shot out and grabbed the giant spider by his own throat, easily holding him back. His other hand grabbed onto one of Kumanic's legs and tossed him down the street. Literally, throwing the arachnid game villain into the street so hard he skidded down it displacing the asphalt and breaking off Kumanic's poisonous barb.

And before Kumanic could even start recovering Segata Sanshiro had jumped onto his back and trapped the monster in a fierce headlock. Kumanic's limbs tore up the ground with the tips of all his arms as he tried to struggle free from Segata Sanshiro's grip, but the fighter was strong. Stronger than any human had a right to be.

Suddenly the flaps on his torso flicked open and more tiny spiders like the ones that had defeated the Kamen Riders crawled out of Kumanic's body. In another second they were all over Segata Sanshiro. The tiny spider robots stabbed into him with their knife-tipped legs, and after another second Segata Sanshiro had to let go.

Kumanic rolled over with all his strength, swinging only his sharp arachnid legs at his opponent. All of a sudden Segata Sanshiro seemed to land from a jump a safe distance away, but it was if he'd just _stopped being_ next to Kumanic before landing from his jump.

Then he did something completely unexpected.

Segata Sanshiro thrust his right arm straight out across his chest and twisted his torso his right. Suddenly he pulled his arm back to his side and thrust out his left arm across his chest.

His black belt had transformed into a white belt with a silver pod on the front, red/green/blue lights spinning inside it. Waves of colorful power surged out, burning off Kumanic's killer spiders.

Then, Segata Sanshiro had transformed. He had on a black undersuit on with silver stripes on the arms and legs, the same color of the gloves and boots he had on with his new uniform. Panels of green armor covered his chest underneath a long red muffler around his neck, and a round blue helmet with bug-like antennae and a pair of piercing red eyes over his head.

No, not a helmet. A mask.

And then then he launched himself at Kumanic, one silver-colored fist aimed at the spider-man's jaw. "**Rider…PUNCH!**" The awesome attack connected and Kumanic went somersaulting backward until he crashed into the corner of a building.

He looked up and spat one of his webs at his opponent, who crouched then jumped high over it, thrusting his arms up next to his head. The web shot past underneath and splattered all over a car parked across the street.

But as the web coiled around the car, crushing it under incredible pressure, the masked warrior stuck out his right foot. "**Rider…KICK!**"

His boot hit Kumanic with a *CRACK*. The spider was lifted off the ground by the kick's awesome force, a cloud of HIT graphics popping out all over Kumanic's body. He was just opening his mouth to scream when he was consumed by a huge fireball. A stream of purple particles flowed away from the explosion up into the sky.

"Incredible," Yoshoku breathed as he watched the end of the battle.

"Unbelievable power," Doku echoed. "He's even stronger than I heard…"

Then they realized Segata Sanshiro was looking back at the two of them, hands on his hips. The two teens shrank back.

He thrust a retro game console he'd produced from somewhere at them.

"You must play Sega Saturn!" he commanded.

"We will, sir!" Yoshoku said, grabbing the offered system. "Won't we, Dasao?"

"Yeah, right now!"

He looked down at them, the teens wondering silently just what he looked behind his mask, before he suddenly jumped, flipped over their heads and landed in the seat of a motorcycle behind them that simply hadn't been there before. He gunned the engine once and roared away.

"What a man," Doku said in awe. Yoshoku could only nod while the bike vanished into the distance.


	2. Errand of Mercy

On the roof the "fasten seat belt" light came back on.

The flight attendant picked up her microphone and announced something in English, hopefully that they were finally about to land.

And the sooner he got to deliver the case cupped protectively in his tense hands, the better.

After a few more minutes he felt the landing gear bounce off the runway then hit it again and start to roll. The plane slowed and drove to a boarding gate, and as soon as the attendants opened the hatch he was out of his seat and squeezing through all the people getting their luggage out of the overhead bins. He'd had a lot of practice dodging worse than them.

…but nobody had _ever _been worse than _her._

While he walked away from the gate, flipping through his phone trying to find the address of his destination, he thought about renting a car or if he should just hail a ride. That way he could leave the engine running when he ran in, dropped off the package, and got away before she had a chance to come up with the energy to launch into her routine.

And then he saw her at the end of the waiting area.

Wearing a ball cap showing a colorful starscape, a white flu mask over her face, red sports jacket and grey plaid skirt above her bright blue high sneakers, neon pink backpack hanging off her shoulders.

Arms folded over her chest, tapping her foot against the floor.

Oh no, _her._

How had she gotten past security if she wasn't boarding a flight?

Then again, how could anyone keep her out?

"Oy! Taiga! I was waiting forever for you to show up!" she snapped.

His usual scowl turned even sharper. "I didn't just come down the block!"

"I called you _yesterday_ about my cold!" Nico snapped at him.

"And here I am _today_!" he snapped back, shoving the sealed bowl in his hands into hers.

Nico opened it and stared down at the brown broth for a minute in silence. "What's this?" she asked.

"Chicken soup."

"It's _cold!_"

"Tch! You need someone to put it in the microwave for you too?" Taiga asked.

Nico stamped her foot. "What kind of doctor are you, anyway?"

"One who's flying back home right now," Taiga said, and turned around and walked down the boarding ramp into the plane he'd just left, and took a seat near the back.

"Sir?" an extremely confused flight attendant said. "The plane just landed."

"I know. I'm waiting for it to fly away again."

The flight attendant looked up the aisle, totally caught by surprise. She took a deep breath and collected herself before she turned back to face the passenger, who was either crazy or the least amusing crank she'd ever met in this business. "Sir, are you sure this is your connecting flight?" she managed to ask.

"Tch! Anywhere's better than here," Taiga grunted, folding his arms over his chest and looking out the window.

As if the attendant's day couldn't get any worse, an angry girl in a flu mask came stomping down the aisle toward the strange man in the scarf. "_Taiga_! This isn't what we talked about! You said you'd let me show you around!"

"You didn't say you'd be so ungrateful for the medicine I brought, either."

Nico scoffed, then grabbed his scarf and dragged him out of the plane by the neck. He gasped and struggled with it as she pulled him way.

The flight attendant sat down in the seat behind Taiga's and sighed with no small relief.


	3. The Things We Treasure

The storm picked up around them, and he could feel the unique tinge of his enemy's arcane power behind it. Bolts of lightning lashed from the dark clouds spinning into a forbidding vortex that stared down on the battlefield like the eye of some angry divinity.

And then, the next blow was thrown.

From the dark stronghold a ray of crimson light lanced into the dark clouds overhead. The vortex _roared_, then expelled a flaming meteor that slammed into the middle of his battlefield, obliterating two of the hatchlings he'd been planning to grow into true behemoths after his power had a chance to return. Sadly he shook his head at the senseless waste, but braced himself as another meteor came down closer to the end of the field. The hellish projectile came down with an epic crash, shattering the walls he'd created to defend his forces in a fireball that was blinding even from that far away.

There was no time to waste. He turned to the golden chalice on his war table and threw in the flask of a bright golden potion he'd been saving for a more strategic moment. If he didn't strike now, there might be no strategic moment at all. Already he could see the dark, winged shapes of his enemy's dragon army taking off from their nests in the distance.

"By the blood of the primal, consecrated in the Vessel of the Progenitors, be strengthened, Pink Eaglewing!" he yelled and pointed to a young dragon waiting on the fields outside his castle. A ray of energy shot from his hand and covered the pink-scaled beast. She threw her head back and spread her wings wide, a few pink and white feathers scattering to the rising winds as she made her trumpeting call.

Her master's power filled her and her call turned louder, more savage. Her wings grew wider, her body longer until she was brushing against the hatchling dragons next to her. They looked up at her in awe, no longer a mere Pink Eaglewing. Her scales had turned the color of blood, a crown of spiraling white horns emerging from the back of her head. Drops of a poisonous fluid fell from between her feathers and sizzled on the ground.

Now, she had reached her full growth, the legendary Crimson Bloodwing dragon.

The same invigorating energy shot from his hand out to other dragons on the field waiting for their orders, or for the touch of power their master was now using to bless them.

With each ray the smoke from his chalice was thinning, but with each ray the size of his army was exploding with new legendary strength. Led by the giant Crimson Bloodwing a column of dragons took off from the field.

Already the enemy army was most of the way to his castle, groups of Black Arcteryx leading the charge. Fast and fierce, but not the strongest of dragons.

As the Crimson Bloodwing proved with her first blast of poison breath, knocking the sleek black horrors out of the sky.

* * *

"That's 3500 damage, and your Black Arcteryx are defeated," Doku Dasao announced proudly.

The seven-year-old boy sitting across the table from him blinked at him, looked down at the carefully latticed spread of monster and magic effect cards between them, then back up at Doku again.

"I'd say that decides the tourney," Doku said proudly to the heavy guy sitting behind the gaming store's counter. Realizing he was being addressed, he glanced up from whatever he was staring at on his phone, and reached under the counter with one hand.

The cashier slapped a chintzy plastic trophy on the counter. It was of a dragon, wings splayed, sitting on a block that had "TAICERANEGO" written across the top, and on the bottom "Dragon's Nest Champion." The whole thing was covered in reflective gold paint and stood maybe five inches high.

"Whooo!" Doku exclaimed, as he grabbed his prize and swept out the door with it, grinning like he'd beaten an army with one finger.


	4. Pizza of Darkness Part 1

In front of him the table thudded under the immense weight of what had just been dropped on it.

"Go on, dig in."

"This isn't really what I'm good at…"

"What do you mean? You love eating! You love eating even more than Bibi does!"

"She _does_ love eating," he conceded.

Slowly, uncertainly, Burgermon tried to pull off a slice of deep dish pizza Kibi was having him try. Five inches seemed excessively deep for deep dish, though. Burgermon was rapidly learning that his host was an experimenter; no matter how crazy a recipe sounded, Kibi was willing to try anything once to find the miracle dish to found his pizza empire on.

Burgermon pulled on a slice.

It wouldn't budge.

He pulled harder, but the slice was stuck to the rest of the pie like cement. Burgermon didn't have to say anything, Kibi was watching his friend failing to separate it from the rest of his most recent creation. Kibi's round face shined from the heat of the kitchen, the only place Kibi claimed to feel really at home. His belt was tighter, like he might've actually sweated off a few pounds Burgermon had met him. His hair was just stubble on his scalp after one of his self-inflicted razor haircuts to keep it simple and get it over with fast.

Kibi's face seemed to be scrunching in on itself when he frowned down at his friend's failure to separate a portion of his new pizza to sample, though. Regardless of how seriously he _didn't_ take his appearance, there was nothing Kibi could focus on as intensely as the philosophy of pizza recipes.

"Not to worry!" he said, thrusting his finger straight up as his usual blind optimism took over. "I have a cutter than can cut through _anything_!"

Already Kibi had the Ju Ju Pizza game in his hand and jammed his thumb down on its trigger. He turned it over, inserting it circuit-first into the slot on the pizza-orange Gamer Driver Kibi had on out of nowhere. "**Henshin!**" Kibi exclaimed, face turning into a grin.

The usual blast of garish colors followed. Chopped mushrooms, fish, peppers and onions spun through the air and shrank to into dark outlines traveling up the arms and legs of Kibi's orange armor as he transformed into the mighty Kamen Rider ZZa. His giant pizza cutter, the Gashacon Wheel, was already attached to his arm, the pink disc on the end spinning as if eager for its task.

ZZa jumped up on the stool across from Burgermon, who leaned back in his own from surprise. In a very unsanitary fashion ZZa propped one foot on the edge of the table, and brought down the whirring wheel of his great pizza-slicing weapon like he was delivering justice to an implacable enemy.

Fountains of sparks erupted from the pizza as the giant wheel came down. ZZa leaned back and forth, bravely trying to carve through the massive pizza.

His blade didn't even sink half an inch into it.

Burgermon wasn't noticing that detail, though. Sparks had landed on top of the giant hamburger that made up his head and set the top bun on fire. He yelped and rank to the kitchen, sticking his head under the faucet.

ZZa pressed the blade of his weapon harder against the seemingly indestructible super-deep dish pizza. Burgermon's loyalty to his vision of an empire of pizza restaurants was a prize he valued above most things; ZZa wouldn't let the monster see him defeated by one of his own recipes. He leaned over harder but his blade didn't go deeper even with the pressure of his superhuman strength behind it.

"Grrraaagh!" ZZa yelled and yanked back his arm. Burgermon peeked out of the door to the kitchen, his giant burger-topped head not surreptitious at all. The Rider didn't notice him, instead focused entirely on the pizza that defied them. _Mocked _them.

"You will not win," Kamen Rider ZZa warned his pizza. It said nothing, but sometimes it was what an opponent _didn't _say that mattered.

ZZa clenched his fingers around the grip on his weapon, holding his finger down on the throttle button. He raked the wheeled across the pizza, then across it again an angle the bisected the first one. A third time at an angle that bisected the second, and then crossed the third angle in the middle with a fourth.

The classic pizza slice. It never failed.

And so it was when ZZa tried to pull away a slice, he was extremely surprised when it still refused to separate from the rest of the pie.

"No pizza can beat me!" ZZa declared. "I'm the master of pizza!"

"What are you yelling about, honey?" asked a short, heavy girl with a round face like Kibi's. Her limp black hair was pulled back in a tiny ponytail.

Burgermon cringed. "Eh, Bibiko-san…this might not be the best time. He's all fired up about this new pizza," the game monster tried to warn her.

"Don't worry, Bibi-chan!" ZZa said with unfailing confidence. "No pizza can defeat me! I _am _pizza!"

The girl, Bibiko, walked right past the proud Rider. "I guess the new cheese mix is a little tougher than I thought."

"You mixed the cheese?" ZZa asked, not quite believing her. "With what? Cement?"

She was completely unimpressed, whapping him upside the head with a wet rag. "It's been too bland lately, honey," she informed him. "You can't have people loving your pizza if it tastes boring."

ZZa let go of the throttle on his pizza wheel. It spun to a stop. ZZa stepped closer to the girl who didn't move, and hugged her in his powerful arms, lifting her right up off the floor. Bibiko didn't move, letting him make his display of affection.

"Bibi-chan, I love you," ZZa whispered. "You're just as dedicated to my dream as we are! You're never afraid to tell me what I need to hear!"

"Her cooking could stand some work," Burgermon mumbled. Bibiko didn't hear, or ignored her boyfriend's weird partner. She walked over to the indestructible pizza and knocked on it with her knuckles. A hollow stone echo was the response.

"Maybe I should leave a few out and try again," Bibiko mused.

ZZa gasped. "Make it soft enough to eat, but still chewy! We'll call the restaurant 'Pizza Bricks: We're Tough as a S***house!" he exclaimed. "How about that?"

"Might want to workshop that name a little bit, honey," Bibiko suggested.

None of them noticed the dark figure slipping away from the window.

**To Be Continued…**


	5. Pizza of Darkness Part 2

Kibi sat at his kitchen table, chin cradled in his hands.

Burgermon sat next to him, his bottom bun cradled in his hands.

Bibiko sat facing Kibi, crunching loudly on a bag of potato chips.

All of them were looking down at the invincible pizza they'd cooked. Sitting there. Staring back. _Defying_ them.

"I don't know about just throwing this away," Kibi murmured. "That seems…dangerous."

"That's easy," Bibiko replied. "Use it to fix that hole in the bedroom ceiling. I'm getting tired of listening to ran falling in those pans and buckets we put under it."

Kibi gasped and hugged his girlfriend, his arms sinking into her soft middle. "That's why I need you, Bibi," he sighed happily. "You're always so practical."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek and pried herself out of Kibi's embrace. "I'll go look at the recipe again and see what to change. Go fix the ceiling and I'll see you later, okay, Kibi-chan?" she asked.

"You bet, my undying love!" Kibi gushed. "Burger-chan, get the ladder and meet me out back after I get the super glue, or something."

"The ladder's heavy," Burgermon said. "Thank for trusting me with the important job!"

Kibi winked back at him and smiled. "You're welcome, buddy!"

Their little group flowed out of the room through different doors. A minute later Bibiko leaned her head back in. "Hey, Kibi-chan? Did you take the new recipe we used for this pizza? I can't find it!"

No answer.

Bibiko walked slowly, actually cautiously into the room. A chill crept up her spine. Something was wrong.

Then she noticed the table.

The unbreakable pizza pie was gone.

"Kibi-chan! Did you take the pizza with you already?" she called out.

* * *

Kibi stepped back into the kitchen, a tube of super glue in his hand. His skin was glistening with sweat from the late summer heat. "Did you say something, my undying love?" he asked.

"I asked if you took the pizza with you," Bibiko replied. "It was gone when I came back to ask you where you put the new recipe you used to make it."

He shook his head. "I didn't take it just to go to the back to get glue. It's heavy, why would I do that?" Then his face lit up with a sly smile. "Wait, I bet Burgermon took it! He was so proud of me calling him strong just now!"

"What did you do with the recipe, though?" Bibiko asked. "I want to know what all we did so can avoid making it so hard next time."

"I didn't take it," Kibi answered, his face contorting itself inward with confusion. "Why would I want the pizza recipe to fix a hole in the roof?"

There was a thump like something heavy being placed against the outside wall, and Burgermon stuck his giant hamburger head through the back door. "I have the ladder ready, Kibi-san…what's wrong?"

"Burgermon, did you take the pizza?" Kibi asked.

"And the recipe for it?" Bibiko followed.

The game monster reached up and scratched the bun on top of his art, knocking off an oversize sesame seed. "What are you talking about? I didn't touch either of those," he replied. "You just said to get the ladder!"

Kibi's jaw dropped. "Wait a minute…what's going on?"

His question was answered as he spotted something bizarre out the window.

Someone was running down the street holding the unbreakable pizza over their head.

XXX

"Oi! OI! Stop right there, you dirty thief!" Kibi shouted as he ran down the street, Burgermon struggling to keep up his boss, Kibi's strength fueled by his outrage at one of his creations being stolen out from under his nose.

Even a totally inedible pizza.

He leaned over, trying to get some impression of the thief's face in case they got much farther ahead of him. The grey hoodie they were wearing concealed everything, however. Instead he clenched his teeth and picked up the pace. Kibi wasn't the fittest Kamen Rider in the country, or the smartest, but there were few who could match him for pure, unbridled energy.

People stared as the bizarre procession ran by them, the indistinct thief carrying a pizza overhead, the overweight chef chasing them down, and the burger monster doing his absolute best to keep up with them all.

"Is this some kind of publicity stunt?" one teenage girl asked her friend, having just gotten over the surprise of the thief charging in front of them.

"It sure is!" Kibi answered. "Keep an eye out for Pizza Bricks! We're tough as a—"

"NO! We aren't!" Burgermon cut him off.

The distance between Kibi and the thief got smaller and smaller while Kibi's lungs were starting to burn. Suddenly they dashed around a corner but Kibi zoomed right after them. His belly was chafing against the bulky belt he had on, which he hoped he wouldn't need to use.

But what kind of person would steal a rock-hard pizza?

Maybe the better question was, what kind of monster would want one?

Much to the relief of Kibi's lungs, the thief stopped in an empty lot. "Ah, so you…," Kibi gasped and rested his hands on his knees. "…give up, do you? Hand…hand that over, and maybe…maybe we'll go easy on you."

"You'll never get this back, Kamen Rider!" the thief said in a feminine voice with a weird trilling quality. Pulling back their hood, they exposed the head of a grey-furred rabbit. Kibi shut his eyes and gave his head a good shake to assure himself he wasn't seeing things.

"Kibi-san…who is THAT?" Burgermon asked in loud surprise.

"I'm the Rabbit Queen! I come from the game of Rabbit Hutch, where children raise adorable bunnies like real pets!" the thief answered before Kibi could even give a wild guess. "But I'm going to do so much more than make children happy from now on! I'm going to rid the world of worthless junk food like pizza!"  
Kibi's eyes turned red with rage. Burgermon took a fearful step backward. "WHAT?!" Kibi screamed.

The Rabbit Queen went on, undaunted. "Without unhealthy alternatives, chhildren will learn to love lettuce and celery instead! With this demonic recipe of yours I can make all pizza inedible!"

His hands were clenched. Just like his teeth. Burgermon was sure he saw small sparks shooting off them.

Just like before the Rabbit Queen seemed not to even notice, as she declared, "First your beloved pizzerias, then every other kind will be next! I will destroy the junk food industry with this ultimate Dark Pizza!"

**To be continued…**


	6. Pizza of Darkness Part 3

In the blink of an eye the Ju Ju Pizza game was in Kibi's hand. "I'll never let you get away with something so _evil_!" he declared righteously.

Across the lot the Rabbit Queen's ears quivered and she let out a haughty laugh, actually raising one hand and covering her mouth with the back. "You think you can stop me? I'm untouchable, thanks to _you_!"

"**Henshin!**"

Strands of pizza toppings were still forming themselves into decorations on Kamen Rider ZZa's armor as he charged up to Rabbit Queen. His powerful Gashacon Wheel was already on his arm and he slashed at Rabbit Queen with the whirring blade.

Her sneakers suddenly exploded into furry white feet twice their apparent length and she easily bounced backward out of his reach. ZZa charged his furry tormentor and went into another slash but she jumped over him, somersaulted and smacked him on the back of his head with Pizza of Darkness.

A sound like hollow metal reverberated across the lot. ZZa tumbled forward and hit the ground with a crash, the Gashacon Wheel slowing to a stop.

"Not exactly Ex-Aid, were you, kid?" Rabbit Queen chortled. She took a short bounce closer, raising the Pizza of Darkness to club him again.

Someone moved faster. Rabbit Queen stopped short when she saw a figure in dark armor blocking the way, staring back defiantly at her from the face partially exposed in the giant hamburger on his shoulders.

"You can't hurt Kibi-san! I won't let you ruin his dream!" Burgermon said.

Rabbit Queen smirked, her buck teeth sticking out a bit more in scorn. "His dream is to make people eat disgusting, greasy food when they could be eating something healthy and green?"

Burgermon pointed an accusing finger at the rabbit kaijin. "You don't know anything! Kibi gives everything to his dream! He leaves in a beat-up old house so he can spend all his money perfecting his recipes! He was sick with Game Syndrome for years, just so he could bring me to life and ask me to help him! Kibi-san wants to make people happy with delicious food! I won't let anyone take that away from him!"

"If you were any other Bugster, I might actually be a little worried," Rabbit Queen said with a sad shake of her head.

She threw the Dark Pizza at Burgermon's exposed face.

It twirled over and over at him, everything seeming to slow down as if the inedible pizza was somehow draining everything around it to hit Burgermon harder. It was becoming an irresistible force.

And Burgermon was definitely no immovable object.

When the Dark Pizza was only a few feet away from him Burgermon suddenly pulled the buns of the burger on his head open wide. Ketchup sprayed out, mustard, onions and tomato slices. Coating everything in an arc in front of Burgermon. Including the incoming confection of evil.

It fell. Hitting the ground and rolling on its edges for a few moments like a manhole cover. All of the power behind it just gone.

"…What…what did you do?" demanded Rabbit Queen in complete shock.

"It's simple," Burgermon explained. "That pizza's horrible, inedible food. Hamburgers are delicious and satisfying. Their power defeated it."

Rabbit Queen clenched her fists and bent over, her eyes pointed at the ground and starting to turn yellow, then red, with rage. "No, it isn't possible…all my dreams of healthy green vegetables!"

Burgermon squeezed the buns on his head tight again. "That dream isn't possible," he said, turning slightly to make ZZa was still all right. To his relief, the Rider was managing to sit up. "Food are gifts. Gifts can only be offered, not forced. Otherwise…otherwise it isn't done to help people improve. It's only forcing someone's own desires…"

"You're awfully philosophical for an idiot with a burger for a head," Rabbit Queen sneered at him.

"This isn't my head—"

She wielded a sword with a long carrot as the blade, its leaves the hilt. "Don't worry, you'll never think again after I'm done with you!"

Wild swings from the vegetable blade came at Burgermon too fast for the hefty monster to avoid. A blow to his chest. His leg. One right under his chin knocked him on his back. Rabbit queen pinned his waist with one giant foot and aimed the tip of her vegetable sword right at his chest. The next stab would be fatal.

If it got a chance to come. "Not so fast, rabbit bitch!" Kamen Rider ZZa charged in and chopped through the blade of Rabbit Queen's carrot sword. The tip spun end over end and end before the tip stabbed dramatically into the ground. "My dream can't happen without my partner! What am I supposed to do without that brain of his?!"

Rabbit Queen made a powerful bound backwards. Suddenly there was a sprig of vegetable in her furry hand. She chewed it up and blew a cloud from her mouth at ZZa and Burgermon. "Parsley Attack!"

"Oh no…it smells so sweet!" ZZa whined.

"Stay strong, Kibi-san!" Burgermon moaned, reaching out to touch his friend's hand as ZZa crumpled to his knees, both of them overpowered by the pungent smell in the air. Rabbit Queen twirled a carrot-tipped spear and threw it between the two and knocked them both down again.

Suddenly Rabbit Queen bounced closer and landed with a foot coming down on top of each of them. She jumped high, did a somersault then came down again smashing her feet onto her opponents.

Kamen Rider ZZa reached out and clutched Burgermon's gloved hand. "Partner, if we get out of this alive, will you help me make dream of serving everyone delicious food come true?" ZZa gasped weakly.

"Of course, Kibi-san," Burgermon confirmed.

"Heh! That's all I need to hear!" ZZa rolled over onto his stomach and blocked Rabbit Queen's next stomp on the side of his Gashacon Wheel. He shoved the surprised villain away with her giving a surprised squawk.

Scrambling his feet until he got a solid footing, ZZa got up and held down the power button to start the wheel spinning again. He raised the wheel and parried a stab from Rabbit Queen's spear on the side. Sparks tinged with orange surrounded him but Rabbit Queen jumped back.

She scowled so hard at the Rider and his friend it was a wonder they didn't burst into flames. "VEGETABLES WILL SAVE THE WORLD!" Rabbit Queen screamed, and grabbed the Pizza of Darkness, the indestructible pie humming with power already in her furry fingers. "**APOCALYPSE BUFFET ATTACK!**" Crouching, she launched herself into the air, so high she was over the roofs of the buildings around them, and then shrank into a black dot in the sky. A glowing sphere of crimson left no doubt she was about to make a big impact when she landed.

ZZa turned to Burgermon. "There's only one way we're gonna survive this, partner," the Kamen Rider said.

"I know," Burgermon nodded. "We have to fire back with everything we've got, and hope it's enough."

"It'll be enough," Kamen Rider ZZa assured his friend.

As they said it the ball of red fire in the distance started coming back down, getting bigger every second. "Time for that move we were practicing," ZZa said. "**ULTIMATE JUNK FOOD WAVE!**"

Next to him Burgermon whimpered with excitement.

Shapes pelted down out of Rabbit Queen's giant ball of energy. Dagger-sharp carrots and celery fell down around the two, embedding in the ground. Ripe tomatoes and lettuce splattered on the ground. One caught ZZa in the chest but Burgermon caught his best friend before the Rider could fall.

ZZa started the attack. He sprayed bullets of tomato sauce from a nozzle on the back of his weapon, moving it in a sweeping pattern and blasting the incoming healthy vegetables away. Another canister went into the back of the Gashacon Wheel and ZZa sweeped back the other way while firing a salvo of garlic butter to intercept more leafy green veggies.

Burgermon peeled back the top bun over his head, reached and pulled out both hands full of giant chopped onions and tomato slices shiny with secret sauce. He spun in place like a tornado, flinging the toppings like giant throwing stars and deflecting even more of Rabbit Queen's vegetable bombardment. One onion hit the furry villain herself right on the forehead and left the fur sticky with unidentifiable sauce.

"Hey!" she screeched, but neither of her targets could hear her. The giant energy ball was so close it was covering the entire sky by that point. Rabbit Queen could be seen in the very middle, sneering at their imminent demise. Around her were endless rows of vegetables, the most lethal salad the world had ever seen. At the center of it all was the most evil pizza the world had ever seen, becoming a point of blackness that rippled as it fed and multiplied the power of Rabbit Queen's vast dietary hatred.

Kamen Rider ZZa's wheel was grinding furiously. "This is it…have to have perfect timing," he breathed. Burgermon gave him a thumbs up. Leaning forward like a sprinter, ZZa took off. He ran as fast as he could, covering a hundred meters in 3.6 seconds. The path he ran took him in a spiral, getting bigger with every lap he took, forming a circle.

With an anxious Burgermon at the very center.

Nothing but an orange blur during his sprint, suddenly Kamen Rider ZZa stopped and stabbed the pizza wheel on his arm into the track he'd just run. The energy he'd built up zipped around the spiral he'd run, circling in, faster and faster every second until it hit where Burgermon stood.

He spread his arms wide and twirled up into the air. The spiral of ZZa's energy started forming shapes everywhere. Pepperoni. Mushrooms. Olives. It was a pizza as big as Rabbit Queen's apocalyptic salad.

Even the Pizza of Darkness that was amplifying her strength couldn't stand a chance against it.

The two giant meals collided. Back and forth they pushed each other as if wrestling. Bits fell from the edges, raining down glowing sausage bits and lettuce shreds. At the very center of the confectionary chaos the pair of monsters—Burgermon and Rabbit Queen—grappled, tearing bits out of the giant pizza and salad as they wrestled for supremacy.

And with a final blast of noise and light that made Kamen Rider ZZa turn away in horror at the awesome power, it was over. The sky was clearing up, and Burgermon drifted delicately to the ground close by.

It was only for an instant but ZZa could see Rabbit Queen in the air, dissolving into a purple stream that drifted away into the distance. Out of the haze dropped a sheet of paper, the ends on fire. ZZa watched it hit the ground and let it burn.

"So ends the Pizza of Darkness," Kamen Rider ZZa murmured.

"What about the recipe?" Burgermon asked, pointing at the flaming paper. "Bibiko wanted that to fix it, didn't she?"

ZZa waved it off. "It's better this way. The creation of something that could be such an awesome conduit for evil is not for the eyes of mortal man," the Rider said with undue solemnity. "Bibi-chan will understand when we tell her."

"If she even believes we fought a rabbit woman," Burgermon muttered.

Pulling the game from his Gamer Driver, Kamen Rider ZZa faded and Kibi returned. He smiled and playfully punched Burgermon on the shoulder. "We did a good thing here today."

And Burgermon nodded his giant burger-covered head. "We defeated the ultimate perversion of the glory of junk food."

**See you next game**


	7. The Band Breaks Up

**Hey everybody, thanks for taking a look at my little side story! This and the next few chapters happen after Chapter 40 of the main story, where the people who competed in a gaming tournament GENM held got new Rider gear as prizes.**

* * *

A glimmer of light was the last sign of the Corrupture disappearing after the seemingly endless battle.

Kamen Rider Diva turned away from the devastated street where she had been fighting. Thousands of eyes focused on the captivating yellow of her armor, styled like a miniskirt and matching short-sleeved crop top. Atop her mask was a head of fake plastic hair, styled into aquamarine pigtails that day, and hanging off the sides were heart-shaped earrings on small chains of fake pearls.

Dangling from the loops of her silver chain belt was her microphone, the lime green case of her Gashat just visible behind the haft.

The instrument that gave her the power to stand up to Corrupture like she just had.

Diva strode away from the scene of battle on five-inch pink platform shoes. Within seconds she was swarmed by squealing teenagers trying to shake her hand and take pictures with her on their smartphones.

"Hey."

A soft, annoying sound seemed to echo across a massive distance. But in front, Kamen Rider Diva was obligingly posing with her fans. She waved and made the peace V with her fingers as the phones of her fans captured their meeting with her forever.

"Hey." The sound came again, louder and even more annoying than the last time. And the time before that.

This time it was joined by a sharp shove between his shoulders.

And he fell off the stool, knocking the tablet showing Kamen Rider Diva's battle off its stand when his head bumped into it.

"You awake now, Shred?"

Shred stood up, clenching his teeth in rage and combing his shaggy brown hair away from the new bump on his forehead. "You're dead, Beat," he growled. Straightening his black vest and ragged jeans, he then picked up the least intimidating object in the studio.

A plastic pink guitar with a bright green neck and head.

Beat sighed and sat down, the lights in the ceiling leaving gleaming spots on his bald scalp. He reached to the sides of his heavy frame and unhooked two green drumsticks, attached to sockets on the sides of his belt by coiling rubber cords. "We're all ready," he said, almost sounding tired, and not impressed with Shred's threat. "Can we try out the game now, like we all came over for?"

In his other hand, Shred had gotten out a Rider Gashat, its case a menacing shade of red. On its label was a rocker in black leather, his muscular arms holding a guitar with flames shooting off its strings. The title, written in flaming letters, said DoReMiFa Rock.

"Don't forget who won the guitar," Shred reminded him. "The best player in the world."

"And I'm the best drummer GENM's ever seen," Beat reminded him in return. "We _all _won that game, and we _all _came to try it out."

A string of spastic musical tones interrupted their argument. Both looked over at the one who was already glaring at them, holding up a pink keytar with green keys in his skinny arms. The wild blonde hair falling to his shoulders only served to make the whole spectacle even sillier. "We're _all _the best player GENM's ever seen."

"And to really get the most out of that game, you need someone who's mastered every instrument," said a fourth youth, his brown hair pulled back into a ponytail that hung past the neck of his leather jacket. He held onto a green saxophone, its mouthpiece bright pink.

Shred scowled. Now Keys and Wail were ganging up on him too. Just because he'd been watching Kamen Rider Diva's latest battle.

Any why not? She'd won a contest like they had. She'd been the best player around of a GENM game, and gotten her own version of the game that let her change into a superhuman. Immediately she'd been able to play that into her ticket to fame. People actually came to see Kamen Rider Diva fight Corrupture when they heard a fight was starting! They stuck around to get a chance to meet her!

Just like Shred would.

If he didn't have to share his spotlight with a bunch of other gamers.

But if he tried to hold out on them, they might just try and take the Gashat away, and then he wouldn't have any chance at all. He hit the trigger button with his thumb.

"**Four-in-one! Pound the beat! Tap the keys! Rock the sax, and swing the axe! All together, bring down the house! DoReMiFa Raaaaaaaawwwwk!**" it screamed.

Shred locked the game into its slot on his guitar controller and dragged his finger down an artificial string, creating a long grinding power chord. "**Henshin!**" Shred yelled.

"**Henshin!**" the rest of them echoed.

Streams of energy flowed out of Shred's guitar, carrying lines and strings of musical notes as they snaked around the studio.

One flowed into the sockets for Beat's drumsticks, another into the teeth of Keys's keytar, and the third down the mouthpiece of Wail's saxophone. All of them flickered white with the power summoned from the game.

The last one spun around the corners of the ceiling, spiraled around the neck of Shred's guitar before looping over the front and back into where the game was locked in.

He almost screamed at the feeling that covered his body. Not in pain, not in fear.

In excitement as the power solidified into armor around his body. A silver-edged pectoral with a health bar and icons of a guitar and pick wreathed in flames. Running shoes that were red on one foot and yellow on the other. A yellow leather vest formed over his shoulders, and strands of red, blue, and yellow plastic hair atop his mask.

The guitar in his hands shook and expanded into a shining black instrument, stylized flames surrounding the body.

"It worked! It REALLY WORKED!" Shred yelled, then actually jumped, pumped his arm backward in victory and whooped. "I'm a Kamen Rider!"

"And you're not the only one," Beat said in a very satisfied voice of his own.

As if he needed to be reminded.

* * *

A passionate strum across the strings.

Rippling waves of power issued from Shred's transformed guitar, cutting a thick grey storm cloud in half.

It was a power that literally split the sky.

Exactly like he'd been thinking the first time he played DoReMiFa Rock. Even before he entered GENM's contest to find the best player in the world.

Let alone before Shred found out the prize was getting to be an actual Kamen Rider.

His guitar strings stretched out as noise blared over his shoulder. Sighing behind his mask, he turned to watch Beat pounding on transparent drums and shaking down the fence of the empty lot. The vibrations they made even making the spikes on his wristbands and green leather vest jangle around like Shred's strings. The top of his mask was as bald as the head underneath, though.

Kamen Rider Wail whipped around the lot blaring on his saxophone, his blue, yellow and red braid whipping out behind him like a rainbow blur over the dull blue of his vest. A blast from his instrument sent an abandoned car spinning over the fence.

"Hey guys," Kamen Rider Keys warned, "let's keep it under control, okay? We don't want to wreck the whole neighborhood."

Wail gave him side-eye out of the oversized eyes of his mask. "You haven't even tried firing yours," Wail retorted. "How about showing us how it's done?"

Keys looked right at him, the spike-studded rest vest over his armor and nest of red plastic hair spikes indeed making him look like the most intense member of their little quartet. He held the keytar in front of himself, its keys now a succession of colors the same as the four Riders' vests.

In a measured voice, he replied, "Blowing things up isn't the only way to impress an audience. You could try actually being good at reading your audience, and getting them with finesse as a musician."

"You saying I don't know anything about how to do that?" Wail asked, but with surprising calm.

Shred and Beat stopped playing their own instruments and looked across the lot at where their bandmates were staring silently at each other. Inside, Shred stifled a chuckle. So it wasn't him after all. Was everyone in this little group just looking for someone to get annoyed with?

Keys tapped a few of his namesake on his instrument. A string of soft, relaxing notes followed.

Suddenly some rusty car parts on the ground levitated up to the level of his chest and started floating around him in a slanted orbit. The Rider hit a sharp note and the debris he'd been levitating went flying off in different directions. Three pieces flew right beside and between where Wail and Beat were standing, missing them just a few inches.

"What I'm saying," Keys answered calmly, "is music's a _precision_ skill. And there's more to precision than just hitting notes."

"GENM should've let me enter with my _real_ band," Kamen Rider Beat groaned.

Carelessly tapping the body of his guitar against his hip, Shred asked, "They play the game too?"

Beat sighed in frustration and shook his head, making the light catching on his bald head dance around almost hypnotically. "_No! _Half of them think video games are a waste of time!" he answered. "When they found out I was a Kamen Rider now, they all said I'd get killed." He held up the sticks corded to his belt and looked around at the other Kamen Riders. "I don't know if they were wrong…"

"HEY!" a voice yelled, and it actually took the quartet of Riders a minute to realize it hadn't been any of them. A pair of cops were running down the street, hands already on their gun holsters.

Immediately the four Riders scattered as if moving on instinct. Shred, Keys and Wail jumped the fences surrounding the empty lot. As Shred cleared the top, he saw Kamen Rider Beat lowering his head and crashing right through the fence instead.

It looked like everyone else was in the clear, so Shred focused on his own escape. Bracing himself, he jumped to the top of a building three floors high. Obviously no ordinary policeman could copy that feat, but he dashed to the other edge and took another long jump to the roof of the building across the street.

The jumps felt weird, holding onto the neck of his guitar and feeling its weight bobbing behind him attached to his arm as he sailed through the air.

But it felt _good_.

That was where his power came from now. His instrument.

Now, Shred was a Kamen Rider. And Kamen Riders could do anything.

And he had one thing in particular in mind…

* * *

At the horizon, the sun was starting to sink into the sea, turning the water into a pool of bright gold.

Kamen Rider Shred's eyes stared straight into it. He bumped his leg lightly off the corner of the building where he was sitting, trying to figure out what the first step in his plan should be. He'd had twenty ideas already, but after a while had to admit to himself that all of them were pointless.

The worst were flat-out stupid.

He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the sky, leaned forward and looked out at the ocean again. He stood up and picked up his guitar, then sat back down again. No, he couldn't give up until he had a plan.

Something to get the attention of Kamen Rider Diva.

This was his first shot at something big in his entire life. He had to be smart about it, or he might be stuck living like a nobody his whole life.

Even if he_ was_ a Kamen Rider now.

"You come up here for the view a lot?" a melodic voice asked from over Shred's shoulder. Immediately he was on his feet, grabbing his guitar and aiming it like a rifle at the source of the voice. It was only then that Shred realized he didn't have any enemies.

What he saw then was an even bigger realization for Kamen Rider Shred.

Because there she was, Kamen Rider Diva. Her fake hair had been styled into a yellow and green braid, and the earrings hanging down were a star and crescent moon. There was still no mistaking her.

She didn't even seem to notice Shred aiming the guitar at her. With a long, captivating strut, she walked around him to the edge of the rooftop. "Don't blame you. It's a hell of a view. A person could get lost looking out there real easy."

Shred stood up and tried to say something. His voice just wouldn't come. Another instinct tried to take over and he shifted his hands to the neck of his guitar. To play something that'd impress her. His hands wouldn't move.

Regardless, when Kamen Rider Diva glanced over her shoulder her eyes seemed attracted to the instrument he was holding. They traced back to the Rider Gashat socketed in the back, and she gasped adorably in surprise.

"What game's that?" Kamen Rider Diva asked in her melodious voice.

"What?" replied Kamen Rider Shred, who couldn't think of anything more intelligent to say. Once it had left his mouth, he caught himself and spent a few precious seconds throwing a hurricane of mental swears at himself. "Oh, that one! Oh yeah, sorry, I ah…it's kind of part of me now, you know? Sometimes I sort of forget it's there, if you know what I mean."

Diva bounced up and landed on her spike heel shoes with perfect poise. "Oooh! Yeah, that's _exactly _how it is with me and my mic!" she said, holding up the microphone with a Gashat of her own proudly sticking out of the handle. "That's so cool…I didn't think you'd relate to your game the same way as me."

Shred's mind felt like it was melting out his ears as he heard that. "Wait, you've been looking forward to meeting me?" he asked, his voice coming out with an edge of a dry rasp.

She giggled at him. "Sure! You're the guy who won the contest for the best guitar player on DoReMiFa Rock, right?" Diva leaned over and scanned her game again, then nodded her head. "That's the game you got in your guitar, yeah! I won the contest for DoReMiFa Idol!"

"I know!" Shred answered, so loud Diva took a step backward in surprise. "I've seen all your battles online! I know everything about them!"

"Oh my god!" Diva gushed back. "You're a fan?!"

"Definitely!" Shred declared, unable to quite believe this was all happening to him.

Diva held her microphone in front of her face and squealed. "That's awesome! You totally have to introduce me to the rest of your band!"

Everything stopped all of a sudden. It was like someone had slammed on the brakes for the entire world. Shred held onto his guitar with rigid fingers that refused to move. In his mouth his tongue was totally still.

"This is so great!" she went on, somehow free of the time warp that had caught Shred in its awesome paralyzing power. "I was hoping I'd get a chance to meet you guys, but I didn't realize you lived so close to me!" She held out her phone, signaling him to exchange numbers. Shred still couldn't move, so she scribbled something down and held it out for Shred, but when he still didn't respond she just chuckled and stuck it into one of the frozen hands holding his guitar controller. "Call me! We'll set something up!" Diva giggled as she somehow jogged to the edge of the roof in her needle-thin heels. "I bet we all sound awesome together!"

Then she took a flying leap to the next rooftop, then the next, until she was just a black dot disappearing into the setting sun.

Shred was still too frozen with horror at what she'd said to move.

* * *

"What's happening?"

"I think you know," Beat answered. Right before their Rider armor disappeared with a disapproving buzzer sound going off.

Overhead a grey screen appeared. Words crawled across it.

CONNECTION DROPPED.

"Figures!" Keys moaned. "We have to stay close to that punk or we lose our power! What were those guys thinking when they made that game?!"

Wail tooted loudly on his sax, and the other two young men looked back at him. "If I could say so, my friends, we weren't exactly too friendly with him, either. Kind of in a hurry to get to see how strong our power made us, wouldn't you say?"

Neither of them answered him, but both looked down the street, hanging their heads for a second and sighing in frustration. "That still doesn't change how stupid it is for only one guy to have his own game!" Keys insisted.

Wail blew into his instrument again. "Wow, I need to check the reed on this thing," he said. A minute later Wail suggested, "Maybe it's the whole point of the game? Maybe we all came into this just thinking about how cool it'd be to be a superhero? Not just Shred."

"What are you saying we should've been instead?" Beat asked.

Resting his sex on his shoulder, Wail shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. A band?"

"Did someone say _a band_?!" a bombastic voice seemed to drop out of the sky on top of them. The trio froze and looked around, scanning everywhere for the voice's owner. A devious chuckle came from behind them, and all of them whipped around to see someone standing between them. All three jumped back.

Immediately the three of them had to resist an urge to shield their eyes. His complexion was dark, but his clothes were blinding. It was like a purple explosion had gone off right in front of their eyes. When their vision finally cleared they still almost had to look away from all the dazzling purple sequins covering his cape and hat, the same color as the jewel topping his shiny black cane. He flashed a smile at them that was a dazzling curl of white, below a pair of sunglasses so dark Keys was afraid he was being sucked into them.

"Who're you?" Beat demanded.

"And did you actually leave the house like that?!" Keys snorted.

Ignoring the insult magnificently, the man flipped his cape over his shoulder and hold out a fan of business cards. "My name's Sol. Liss. Sol Liss. Agent to the _stars_, baby! You want fans? I'll get you fans! You want to be your own act? Just name your terms, baby!"

Keys was the first to step away. "I don't need an agent, I need my own game. Talk to you guys later. We'll figure out what the smart thing to is about Shred, okay?"

Sol chuckled. "Oh, don't be like that!" Then a menacing crimson glow appeared in his eyes. "Stick with me and I'll get you all the fan you ever wanted," he said, a menacing reverberation echoing in their ears.

* * *

That night Shred stared at his guitar controller in accusation as he lay in bed.

How could things have gone so right, and then immediately have gone so _wrong_?

"Diva…why do you need to meet my band?" Shred moaned. "Why do I even have to have a band? I'm as good as any Rider there's ever been…_and _a better musician than any Rider there's ever been."

Depressed, he folded his arms behind his head and wondered what to do. Sure, he could always do the honest thing, he guessed, and tell the other three about Kamen Rider Diva wanting to meet all of them. Sure, they'd gotten on his case when he'd been watching her latest victory, but they'd want to meet another Kamen Rider who wanted to work with them, right?

Then again…why did any of those jerks need to know that Shred had gotten to meet her? The real, the one of a kind, Kamen Rider Diva. Maybe Shred could just tell her the other Kamen Riders weren't professional enough to stick around when they found out their powers were tied to _his _game. He'd been left to protect the territory all by himself…who wouldn't respect somebody that brave?

Suddenly Shred sat up in his bed. From outside came a horrible shrieking sound. Something pounding and driving like some jerk who'd cranked up the bass on his car stereo, but high and piercing like amp feedback. He ran to the window and flung it open to try and see what was going on.

Immediately Shred was knocked off his feet by the awesome force of the discordant sound coming from outside. He wouldn't even profane the word "music" comparing that toxic noise to it. Just before he was knocked over, he'd seen spotlights raking the sky over the roofs of the buildings.

And with noise that loud and awful around, Shred had a feeling he knew what was going on…

* * *

Its engine sputtered a few times, but Shred's old motorcycle finally roared to life and he leaned hard as he took around the corner at top speed.

There was no time to waste. Half the city probably knew about whatever was going, even though Shred's neighbor probably thought it was just late-night practice.

If half the city knew about whatever was going on, then Kamen Rider Diva almost had to know about it too. And she needed to see him there, at whatever was going on to make so much of that terrible noise.

There wasn't far to go, it turned out. After only a few blocks the street had been cleared, cars upended and dropped into messy piles sticking up from all angles. They'd been moved to make room for a wide white concert stage, where the spotlights Shred had seen sweeping the sky from his window were mounted on the front corners. Stacks of speakers lined the back edge of the stage, where the horrible blasts of random sound were coming from.

In front of a row of sinuous backup dancers with shiny purple heads shaped like viruses, was a band of three armor-clad musicians. The eyes of their masks were big and cartoony, like any Kamen Rider's, but a menacing purple glow seemed to _flow _behind them.

A short, stocky one wearing green and banging away on transparent drums floating in the air in front of him.

A tall thin one with a chaotically colored braid contrasting his vibrant blue armor, and blasting away on a saxophone with a smiling fireball painted on the side. Short spikes lined the rim of the bell.

Last was a musician in red, playing on a keytar designed to look like a demon's face, and predictably the keys were its teeth.

Shred slipped off his bike and unslung the guitar from his back. He triggered its Gashat and was about to load it when suddenly, the horrible "music" the bad was playing stopped.

All three of them were staring right at Shred. Even the backup dancers had stopped and were pointing the fronts of their inhuman heads in his direction. "That's _just _what this combo needs!" a voice sang. "An axeman to front us!"

A man in an absurd purple suit suddenly seemed to appear in the corner of Shred's eye. He lifted his impossibly dark sunglasses, and his eyes were swimming with the same weird purple light as in the musicians' masks.

"Not a chance!" Shred yelled and loaded his game much too hard. He strummed the neck of his guitar and in a flash, he was a Kamen Rider.

"Aw, buddy, you should'na done that," Sol Liss said, more amused than scared. "I made them an offer, and they all took it," he said, gesturing to the trio of musicians. "That's right, look familiar?"

Shred jumped back and aimed his guitar at the Corrupture, clearly willing to use it. Sol just smirked. "Boy, I convinced all of them…what makes you think I can't convince you too?" he asked in a voice full of quiet menace.


	8. The Band Gets Together

It was true.

Kamen Rider Shred scanned the three armored musicians. The drummer in green, spikes looking like monster's teeth covering his shoulders and down his arms. Sax player in blue, a long braid hanging down the back of his head that almost seemed to writhe slightly like a living thing. Keyboardist in red, strands of hair falling down from the top of his mask that looked more like tiny flexible blades the long Shred looked at them.

But he didn't have to look at them for long. He recognized them easily as the other contest winners. The ones who'd been arguing with him about not being a team player.

"What'd you do to them?" Shred demanded.

Sol Liss shrugged his shoulders, a serene look on the Corrupture's face despite the deadly guitar Shred was aiming at him. "They wanted to be a righteous combo, my dude," Sol replied. "The guy who had the game was hogging the power all to himself, so I just did 'em a little favor and let them have power on their own. And they're making beautiful, _beautiful _music!" He whipped around to face the silent stage.

And extended an accusing finger at them, hissing purple sparks jumping on the end. "Hey, nobody told you to stop!" Sol Liss snarled at them. Immediately they started on their instruments again, and immediately the air was full of that hideous noise that'd knocked Shred to the floor back in his apartment.

It almost did again, but he struck a series of hard power chords on his guitar. They blasted through the air, shaking the windows around Shred, and _almost_ overwhelmed the terrible storm of sound the other musicians were making.

Again all three of them stared Shred down, but kept banging away on their instruments with the furious look Sol Liss was giving them. "See what you think of some _real _music!" Shred screamed over his own wailing guitar. He dragged his pick up and down the artificial strings, sending a wavering beam that looked like bars and notes ripping across the stage.

Beat, Keys and Wail fired back with beams just like Shred's from their own instruments. The musical beams pushed against each other, but the other three's combined attack quickly overwhelmed Shred's. He gasped and jumped backward but was still sent flying as the blast exploded.

Shred's feet hit the ground and he skidded until he slammed into the side of a skyscraper. When he shook his head to clear his vision and looked back at the stage, Beat, Wail and Keys were back to playing and ignoring him while the virus-heads danced and twirled behind them.

But there was one person who wasn't ignoring Kamen Rider Shred. It was Sol Liss, the band's Corrupture manager. Purple sparks were jumping from his outstretched finger again, and one as big as Shred's head shot straight at him. "Show me how good you are, dude!" he sang. "Maybe I can still find a spot for you in the band!"

"You're gonna be sorry you asked me for that!" Shred yelled and _shredded _the chords on his guitar. A blast of notes and bars lanced from the head.

And _shredded _right through the manager's attack.

The musical blast kept going, still glowing with enough power to threaten Sol Liss. The Corrupture just smirked, snapped his fingers, and Beat suddenly stopped pounding his drums and jumped in front Sol Liss.

An explosion erupted that swept back from where Beat had set himself up as a human shield, almost getting back far enough to touch Sol. A tiny fireball landed on the sleeve of his jacket, but he casually reached over and crushed it between his fingers. The smirk on his face got even nastier when Beat stood up, his legs shaking underneath him and plumes of smoke still rising from his armor.

"You just gonna stand there and let other people protect you?!" Shred taunted.

The response he got was a cruel laugh. "Yeah! Protecting me's part of what they need to do to pay back the power I let them have! That and the best music in the business!"

Suddenly a streak of bright but oddly synchronizing colors came flying down from above and knocked Sol Liss down. He rolled several times, purple sequins coming off his jacket and bouncing off the eyes of Kamen Rider Shred's mask. He wasn't paying much attention to what'd happened to the villain, though: Shred's eyes were on the surprising attacker instead, and just like he'd been expecting, standing there was the immaculate Kamen Rider Diva!

"She got me right with the pointy part of that heel!" Sol Liss complained. Even Shred couldn't help cringing just a little; the points of Diva's stiletto heels looked even sharper than when he'd just seen her. Was that really a metal file sticking out of the back of her oversized but stylish belt…?

"You haven't even heard me sing yet!" Diva laughed, twirling her microphone over her wrist. She brought it up to her face. The three band members tensed to fight.

But Sol Liss jumped to the stage and held up his finger to sky. "Ah, no! I seen everything I needed to see!" he interrupted before a fight could start for real. "Now we hit the bigtime, boys, and spread our message of _MUSIC_!" Around him the stage was starting to disintegrate into a purple blob.

Kamen Rider Shred took aim with his guitar and hit the sharpest chord, but it was too late. Already the stage was gone, whirling up out of sight. Gone with it were the band, and even the virus-head backup dancers. The chaotically-stacked cars and damage to the street left no doubt the Corrupture and their controlled band had been there, though.

No, Shred realized. Not controlled.

Corrupted.

"Damn, I've got to go after them!" Shred grumbled. A ring of square icons came out from the Gashat on his guitar and he was about to tap one, when…

"It is true?"

Shred froze like a statue. It was Kamen Rider Diva's voice.

"Is what he said true? Were those the other winners? Did they make a deal with him because you didn't want to share the power of your game?!" she demanded.

Shred lowered his guitar, feeling like he'd been impaled.

"What makes you think he said anything like that?" he asked cautiously. It was all he could think to do.

Diva held her microphone out toward him. "This is the most powerful microphone ever made. It can pick up sounds from miles away. I heard the whole conversation you and he were having," she answered, rage starting to tinge her voice.

"We won the contests, but we never met till just a little while ago," Shred replied limply. His mind was still processing actually getting to meet his idol, and all the possibilities that might lead to. Sparing the mental runtime to explain about the other Riders who got powers from his game hadn't come up yet…

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kamen Rider Diva demanded.

Shred shrugged helplessly. "We're not exactly a real band, we haven't hung out or practiced anything! I don't even know their real names! Just their Kamen Rider names!"

Still, she pointed past him to where the purple blob was flying away. "But how bad do things have to be for them to say yes to powers from a game monster?" she accused.

"I don't know! I just—" Shred started to say, but Diva walked around him. "Wait, where are you going?"

"After them, obviously. I have to help those people in trouble, or at least stop them before they can do any damage with the power that Corrupture gave them," Diva answered.

He started to jog up to her, but she held up her hand. "This is too important, and there's no time to talk it over. I can't risk bringing someone along if I can't trust them." Shaking her head, she broke into a run—in her high heels—and then took a giant leap off the roof. Diva disappeared out of sight after the Corrupture blob.

Shred walked to the edge of the roof, kicked the concrete lip and growled in rage.

"How can something as stupid as this be happening?!" he yelled, his voice echoing across the rooftops. He almost kicked himself as he realized Diva probably heard that too, but sighed when he figured out that at that point, it didn't matter anymore. Diva thought he was the one who'd treated the other three so bad, they'd said yes when a Corrupture said he could give them powers instead.

And was the truth really that much better?

Shred _had _been ignoring the rest of the band. He'd only looked at the Gashat he'd been given and seen it as a chance to get Kamen Rider Diva's attention. He'd thought that having a Kamen Rider's powers was what he needed to be worthy of someone so amazing.

And idiotic thoughts like that had made Shred miss two incredibly important things.

DoReMiFa Rock was a game that was supposed to be played with friends. Shred hadn't even tried to get to know the other Riders. Hadn't even tried to help them come together as a band. He'd completely failed to understand not just the point of games, but one about a _band_.

But the second thing he hadn't figured out was even worse.

It wasn't being a Kamen Rider that made him worth Diva's time.

There had been bad Kamen Riders. Ones who were evil incarnate. But there had been so many who'd been heroes. Amazing men who'd done such brave, unbelievable things. Shred had a chance to be one who was a real hero.

And holding onto that thought as tight as he could, Kamen Rider Shred summoned up a collection of icons, this time putting his fist through one with a determined punch.

* * *

The purple blob kept shrinking farther and farther out of sight, but Kamen Rider Diva held tight onto her microphone and concentrated all of her power into it. Its trail of colorful notes came brighter and bigger, propelling her faster after the retreating Corrupture.

It all seemed a little suspicious to her, however…If they were as powerful as they'd seemed, why weren't they leaving her behind more easily? Maybe they were toying with her. Why would they have been making a big show in the middle of the street, then run away without even trying to accomplish anything?

Unless it was a trap.

She spotted something out of the corner of her eye then, and tensed as the yellow blur came speeding up to her.

Except it wasn't a Corrupture, it was a Kamen Rider surfing along on a trail of musical bars, warbling away on a guitar controller. It was Kamen Rider Shred.

"I thought I told you to stay behind!" Diva hissed at him, obviously irritated. Shred chuckled, and she clenched her teeth. "What's so funny?"

"Kamen Riders aren't allowed to stay home when there's trouble, right?" Shred replied. "And they're supposed to set an example, too. Least that's what I heard."

Diva stared right through him for a second. Shred looked back at her but turned to face forward and played even faster. "If you're trying to impress me, it'll take more than saying you're sorry," she said, and faced ahead.

He shrugged. "Yeah. Guess I'll just have to prove it," Shred chuckled.

Kamen Rider Diva looked over at him again, but Shred was starting to get ahead of her.

She'd have to keep an eye on him after all. But…maybe it would be good to have a partner.

* * *

Only a few minutes later the Corrupture blob started to come down near the edge of town. It hit the ground with a loud SPLAT, but then started to reform itself into something huge.

The base of another stage sprang up with a half-dome framing the back, rows of lights hanging from a rig near the top. Rows and rows of seats sprang up in front of it.

In every seat was a Corrupture Cell, one of the virus-headed beings, just waiting for the show to start. Hovering in the air were cameras with buzzing insect-like wings.

Standing on the stage was Sol Liss, the diabolical manager, himself. He had pulled down his sunglasses to see better, an ugly purple static covering his eyes. He blinked, held his eyes closed for a second, then opened them again. Instead of what his own eyes were pointed at, he could see the stage from the angle of one of the hovering cameras. Another blink, his vision shifted to the view from another camera. A last blink and he'd reviewed the feed from all of them.

"Perfect dynamics. People'll be able to see _everything_ once the show starts," Sol Liss said with a grin. "And after that, they'll never want to see anything else again…"

With a swing of his sequin-covered arm, Sol Liss turned to his band. The three musicians were standing around, shapely female Corrupture Cells fawning over them, stroking their muscles and chins. "Hey! You three psyched up for your first big concert, or what?" Sol demanded of the three musicians.

"Where's the groupies?" Beat asked in a robotic-sounding monotone.

"You get to hang out with the groupies _after _the show, and bands only get groupies if they're good," Sol barked at them. "So get out there and let's see some frigging hustle!"

Rushing past him with a speed created from fear, the band ran out onto the stage and spread out. Behind them came the Cells who'd just been entertaining them, fanning out into their dance positions.

Beat went first, slamming out a few loud notes on his drums that could only be seen for the second his sticks hit them. Wail lived up to his name by sending out a painful blast on his saxophone. Meanwhile, Keys unslung his keytar and tapped out a few experimental notes to gauge the acoustics of the stage. As he did he was sure he saw a pair of shooting stars or something, that disappeared after they zipped behind the edge of a building.

Through the foggy filter his mind had taken since seeing Sol Liss's contract, Keys realized he should've thought something like that was weird. Something he should've warned his boss about.

But his boss had told them to get warmed up for the big show. And if they wanted to have special powers, they'd better learn to shut up and earn them.

A block away, Kamen Rider Diva and Shred had landed. She was looking back at the dome of the Corrupture's stage, making a thoughtful sound in her throat as she did. "There's so many Corrupture. I don't like those odds," she muttered, half to herself, half to Shred.

"Then we have to change the odds," Shred pointed out.

Diva turned back to look at him. "You have a plan to do that?"

Shred looked her straight in the oversized eyes. "I think I do, if you don't mind helping me out with vocals."

"Vocals are what I do best," Diva replied.

A little chortle was Shred's answer, surprising. "I know," he told her.

Back on the stage, Wail stepped to the center and a pair of bright white spotlights trained on him from different sides of the lighting rig. The audience fell completely silent, waiting for the musician.

He took a bow in front of them, holding his saxophone controller to his chest. "Folks, you have no idea how humbled I feel to see such a big turnout to our first little show," Wail said, the prescripted feel-good line he'd been given scrolling across his mind like a machine. Scattered—but loud—pockets of cheering erupted from the audience. "We hope you'll have as good a time as we are playing for you, and I speak for the whole Corrupture Combo when I say that." More cheering, louder, and from all over the stands that time.

With the spectators all warmed up for the show, Wail asked, "How about we start off the night with that hit by the Hormones, 'Purple Skin'?"

* * *

Sitting on a bench in front of her office, a cubicle worker was shocked when the video she'd been watching on her table suddenly turned into a wall of purple static. It crackled at her like a snake's hiss for a split-second before showing the Corrupture concert. She held her hands over hear ears and squealed in pain.

It was nothing compared to the sound she made when a cloud of purple smoke gushed out of her screen.

All over town the same thing was happening to anyone in front of a screen. Whatever they were watching turned to the concert of the Corrupture trio, and purple smoke jetted out to cover them. Almost to a one they fell to the ground, clutching their faces.

Their fingers throbbing with purple veins.

* * *

Horrible noise blasted from the stage, the three corrupted musicians waving back and forth to their own terrible beats. Behind them, the Cells danced to a rhythm only they could detect out of the noise.

Overhead the sky was starting to ripple and distort from the awful power of the music, twisting into a whirlpool with a forbidding purple glow at the center. Violet sparkles were drifting down, into the lenses of the flying cameras broadcasting the concert. Spreading the touch of the Corrupture to the owner of every screen for miles.

Windows rattled in their casings and on the sides of abandoned cars from the horrific music. Small spiderwebs of cracks formed in the ground around the stands where their Corrupture fans sat, cheering the evil sound the band's "song" made as if it was brilliant music after all. The Cells lifted their arms up into the air to show their support, even as the power of the song seemed to be rotting the very environment around them.

As the concert kept going, Sol Liss watched with a wicked smile. The power they were building up with their "song", since even he knew better than to call it that, was incredible. But it wasn't enough.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Sol yelled at the trio, "Play louder, punks! We need to take over more screens, and spread the virus farther! Think of all the fans you'll have if you can pull that off, huh?!"

Beat nodded in understanding and started to pound his transparent drums faster. His shoulders and arms were aching something hideous from the strain, but his foggy mind told him to stay quiet and deal with the pain. This was his big break, after all. If he didn't give it everything he had, another one would probably never come around…

And so when he heard another loud sound starting up nearby, starting to slightly drown out the song his band was playing, Beat felt himself getting annoyed. It was another song. A loud, fast shredding of notes on a guitar.

Shred…why did that word sound familiar to him?

The song seeming to fight against their band's got louder. Suddenly the guitar died down and a woman started singing: "On a cold winter morning, in the time before the light…in flames of death's eternal reign, we ride toward the fight!"

Corrupture Cell spectators looked around, seeming confused. But it was impossible even for the bandmembers to tell what the virus-headed creatures were thinking just from a look. A few of them in the back suddenly squealed in surprise as someone charged down the aisle. Huge eyes adorned the front of his mask, hands holding tightly onto the neck of a guitar as he ran, belting out notes at high speed.

It was Kamen Rider Shred.

And he wasn't alone, as the voice sang out, louder than last time: "When the darkness has fallen down, and the time are tough alright, the sound of evil laughter falls around the world tonight!"

Black-shirted security Corrupture Cells ran out to intercept the Kamen Rider attacking the stage. Shred went into a spinning kick, smashing their huge round heads with the toes of his gaudy-colored track shoes. Splats from the hard kicks made it to Beat's ears over the noise of his band's "song".

Beat felt an urge to wince in pain through his fogged mind. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wail actually stop playing for a second and flinch at the sound of the "splat".

And behind them, Sol Liss was clenching his teeth in fury.

"Hey!" he yelled at them, holding up paper contracts in both hands. "If you get upstaged, I'm ripping up your contracts!" Sol threatened. "You don't want to think about what happens if you don't deliver the hits!"

"Ha! I'm sure glad you're not my manager!" Kamen Rider Shred taunted him.

Sol Liss turned to look at Shred, whisking the contracts into his jacket. "You'll wish I was in a minute, _human_," Sol hissed at Shred. "You could've lived, then."

"Like _them_?" Shred retorted, waving the head of his guitar at the trio of musicians, still shrieking ugly noises on their instruments. "That isn't living! What kind of freak could think that was good?!"

An unsettling sneer appeared on Sol's face. "The new dominant species," he replied, and lowered his sunglasses to fire beams from his eyes Shred's chest.

But suddenly the woman's voice sang out again: "Fighting hard, fighting on for the steel, through the wastelands evermore!~ The scattered souls will feel the hell, bodies wasting on the shores!" A barrage of shining musical notes came between Sol's beams and Shred.

Sol Liss looked over in a rage, but his mouth dropped in surprise at what he saw. Kamen Rider Diva stood on the back of a chair in the stands, the Cell spectator sitting in it knocked out. How she managed to balance on the back of a stadium seat in high heels defied belief.

Her opponent didn't have a chance to think about that for long; she sang into her microphone and sent another barrage of notes at the Corrupture. While she was keeping Sol busy, Shred pointed his guitar at Beat, still banging away on his see-through drums. And he started playing along with the song that Diva was singing again.

* * *

Only one thought was occupying Beat's mind: living up to his dream of playing for a huge audience. He couldn't even see the back of the crowd in front of the stage. All of them there to listen to him play.

They were cheering at the top of the gurgling voices. Beat knocked out the hardest, most exciting rhythm he could. It was the only professional thing to do to reward the crowd for their loyalty…

But another sound reached his ears. Someone else playing another song. A louder, more exciting song than the one Beat and his bandmates were playing. And more than that, Beat felt a weird vibration in the sticks held tightly in his hands. He was still drumming, but realized that he wasn't drumming along to the other song now. The more exciting one…

And suddenly, it felt like his head had burst open. He could see, hear, _feel _more clearly than he ever had in his life. The bright purple on the heads of the Corrupture Cells in the stands. The light catching on the lenses of the hovering cameras in front of the stage. The assault on Beat's eyes that was Kamen Rider Diva's multi-colored armor as she fired music notes at a man in a twinkling purple suit.

Most of all, the sweet, sweet notes being played by the one in the red armor so bright it almost shined. Someone Beat recognized. Shred.

His guitar was glowing white, he was playing it so hard and so fast. In a flash, Beat's drum sticks were glowing white with the same incredible power. With every slam against his see-through drums Beat's head got clearer and clearer, and he quickly realized what he needed to do:

Share the power of the Kamen Riders' song with the other musicians, to free them from the Corrupture's control.

Beat and Shred turned to face Keys and Wail, whose instruments also started glowing white. Instead of the hideous noise they'd been creating, it was the intense song, the _amazing _song Shred and Diva had been playing.

And in that moment, they were free.

Pieces of their amor cracked and sloughed off their bodies, melting into puddles of purple goo when they hit the floor. Keys gagged in disgust and shouldered his keytar and slapped a few small blobs clinging to his bare arms. "I said yes to being covered in that crap?!" he demanded of nobody in particular.

"We didn't agree to anything, remember?" Wail countered with another question. "That freak shot light out of his eyes and hypnotized before we answered his questions."

"I'm…still sorry for trying to hog the game," Shred said, looking down at his suit's neon running shoes. "It's a game a bunch of people are supposed to play together." A drum stick tapped the bottom of his chin and lifted Shred's face up, so the three of them could look him in the eye.

Beat spoked up first. "Not people, dude. Friends."

"What? Just like that?" Shred asked.

At first Beat shrugged. Then suddenly he smirked. "Well, we can give it a try, can't we?"

An explosion from behind interrupted them. Kamen Rider Diva had been blown off her perch in the stands. In midair she somersaulted to get her legs back underneath her and hit the ground, skidding on her high heels but rising back to her full height.

"You actually met Kamen Rider Diva?" Wail asked in utter disbelief.

"Talk later! Now, we play!"

Wail nodded. "Let's do what we should've done before: band together!"

Keys groaned. "That was the worst joke I ever heard!"

Striking a powerful chord that reverberated across the stage, Shred yelled out, "**Henshin!**"

* * *

Focusing her giant anime eyes on her opponent, Kamen Rider Diva raised her microphone to her mouth. "Ladaaaaa!" It was simple, but it did what she needed. Once again Diva sang into her microphone and sent a cascade of large notes flying out in Sol Liss's direction. The Corrupture opened his mouth, but suddenly his jaw stretched almost down to his waist, exposing a huge mouth full of rows of fangs and a black forked tongue a few feet long.

He _roared_, and a blast of purple and black musical notes shot out and met Diva's. There was a horrendous cacophony of sound and both clusters of notes were gone.

That wasn't even the most shocking thing that was happening. Bits of Sol Liss were breaking off and shattering on the ground like little pieces of porcelain. Underneath patches of dark purple scales were showing through his disguise.

"That figures," Kamen Rider Diva said. "You have to wear a mask to trick anybody into thinking you're someone respectable."

"That's how managers are, sweetie!" Sol Liss growled, his mask cracking over one eye and falling away, showing a glowing red eye the size of a baseball underneath. "We lay on the charm and we take our cut after we get the talent a big gig…what's so wrong with that?!"

Diva didn't answer but took a step back, and tightened her grip on her microphone. He threw his arms wide. All four of them. Bat-like wings hung down from them among the tatters of his sequin-spangled jacket. Sol's human mask finished cracking and falling away, revealing a strange fish-like face with a wide mouth full of needle-like teeth, but topped with tall bat-like ears.

"If you think about it," he said, his voice distorted into a roar with the loss of his disguise, "_I'm _the one doing the real work!"

But Diva still didn't answer. Instead, she chortled as she looked over the monstrous Sol's shoulder. Part of him knew better than to let himself be distracted in the middle of a battle, but another part knew not to let himself be taken by surprise. He half-turned to his side and looked behind him. Back at the stage.

Where four Kamen Riders, looking back at him with their typical giant eyes and brandishing musical instruments, were standing. Piled all around them were the unconscious forms of the Corrupture Cells who'd been given to them as backup dancers and groupies.

Given to them by _him_.

In the blink of an eye the monstered-out Sol Liss held a stack of papers in each clawed hand. "You're still under contract!" he shouted at them.

"Don't worry, handsome!" Kamen Rider Shred shouted back. "You want a song, we'll give you one, right?"

Keys hit a few notes on his keytar. Beat banged out an intense solo that brought dust raining down from the roof of the stage. In contrast to their blaring sounds, Keys played a soft string of notes on his instrument. "We're ready," Wail answered for the whole band. He tucked his saxophone under one arm and bowed dramatically. "And we'd be honored to have you join our performance, my lady."

An amazed glance passed between Beat and Shred, but Keys nodded lightly in approval.

Diva broke into a run and vaulted over the head of the Corrupture band manager. She landed with perfect poise in front of the other Riders and twirled her microphone in her hand. "I'd be delighted, boys!" she chirped.

Growling in frustration, Sol Liss launched himself into the air, all four wings spread wide. "You were given that power to spread something glorious, and you're just gonna throw it all away?!" he demanded. "Then I'll have to throw _you _all away and find someone who deserves it!"

In a hideous droning voice, he droned, "_You have no idea what it takes to make it in this industry! Bet you think just knowing how to play a few songs makes you a star! What do you know about booking gigs or negotiating with record execs?"_

Below him the band slumped, his speech numbing their minds and draining strength from their arms. But Beat lifted his drum sticks over his head and hit them together. "Five! Six! Seven! Eight!" he yelled, then started hitting his drums in a flurry. Sol Liss was still flapping his lips, but his demotivating speech was drowned out by the drumbeat.

"All together now!" Diva yelled over the pounding drums.

"**DoReMiFa Critical Crescendo!**" announced the game locked into Shred's guitar, as all four of them launched into the song he and Diva had been playing before.

Clenching the microphone tight, Diva burst into the next part of the lyrics, "On the blackest plains in Hell's domains, we watch them as they go! Through the fire and pain and once again we knoooooow!

"Now we fly ever free…we're free before the thunderstorm! On toward the wilderness, our quest carries on!" Kamen Rider Diva sang with all her energy. Shred, Beat, and Keys played along with the song so hard their hands turned into blurs in front of their guitar, drums and keytar. Wail blared on his saxophone even though the song didn't include one, just to add his power.

Overhead Sol Liss was still circling, yelling at them about how he knew best, but his words were completely overpowered by the Kamen Riders' song. Skinny cracks were forming across his body, lavender light seeping out.

Filled with confidence that their assault was working, Diva went into the climax of her number. "Far beyond the sundown! Far beyond the moonlight! Deep inside our hearts and all our _sooooouuuuuuullls_!"

"So far away, we wait for the day…for the lives all so wasted and gone…we feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days…_through the fire and the flames, we carry on!_"

Then she and the rest of the band raised their instruments. Her microphone, Shred's guitar, Beat's drum sticks, Keys' keytar and Wail's sax. All five fired a beam that converted on one point, combining into one massive laser throwing out shining musical notes as it slammed into Sol Liss.

"…better listen to what I tell you if you want to make in…this…business…" he gurgled, then disintegrated into a purple blob. It hovered in midair, then spiraled out of sight.

All around the band, the unconscious Corrupture Cells who'd been their backup dancers were dissolving and flying away after the remains of Sol Liss. In the stands, the Cells who'd been spectators were screeching as they dissolved into the sky like the rest.

But the Kamen Riders quickly saw it wasn't just happening around them. From around the edges and roofs of buildings, more thin streams of purple twisted their way into the sky.

"What's going on?" Shred asked.

"It's the victims," Beat said solemnly. "The people who saw the concert and got infected by the Corrupture virus that he transmitted through the broadcast. Now they're going to join the other Corrupture."

Silently, the band watched as the countless purple strands weaved away.

* * *

It seemed like days had passed since the end of the battle, but night had only set over them as they walked slowly away from the stage. It was already crumbling back into nothing behind them.

All of them were completely silent, with Diva being the first to remove her game and flicker back into the ordinary person she was underneath. If that word really applied to someone like her; her hair was tied into alternating green and yellow braids just like had been on her mask. Although the heels on her shoes were a much more realistic height. Her skin was an exotic brown, contrasting with the rainbow of colors in her hair, her contact lenses, lipstick and fingernails.

Kamen Rider Shred stop where he was walking and quivered at the sight of Diva in person, out of her armor. Keys didn't notice he'd stopped and bounced off him, staggering back. Wail and Beat chuckled at both of them.

"Those Corrupture got a lot of people infected today," Diva sighed. She looked at the rest of the band with a hardened gaze. "But I'm not going to let them get anymore, and I'm going to get those people back."

All four locked their eyes on Shred, who pulled the game out of his guitar controller. Their armor faded out with a "**GASHUUN**" that sounded almost defeated. Shred immediately spoke up: "In a way, this is kind of my fault. Maybe if I'd been more open to forming a band, instead of thinking this was my chance to meet a celebrity," he said, eying the unmasked Diva for a second, "well, maybe things wouldn't have had a chance to get this bad. I'm looking to start a band to make things better, though. Call it a charity tour if you want…you guys in?"

"I mean, I guess," Wail said, but smirked.

"Fine, but I'm coming up with the name for it," Keys added.

Shred turned back to Beat, who was nodding thoughtfully and tapping his drum sticks against his shoulder in slow rhythm. "Well? You in?" Shred prompted.

Beat tapped him on the head with the drum sticks. "You ever hear of a band with no drummer?"

"Well, that sounds like everyone's in," Wail observed. "Except we still need vocals. I'd volunteer, but I use my mouth to play another instrument already.

"Ewww!" Diva giggled. "Did you have to make that sound so dirty?"

Wail chuckled. "Somebody's got to keep things funny, and I have to say, I haven't seen of you showing you're up for it yet."

And the five walked on into town, the night suddenly seeming much brighter.

* * *

**Thanks to DragonForce for the (awesome) song.**


End file.
